Had a private tour booked. 4 of us went off to Florence. About 1 hour and 20 minute drive. Florence is no doubt beautiful, but in the 2.5 hours we had there it was disappointing. Once again it was overrun by tourists. It's popularity driving the prices and the crowds. Charges to get into churches and crowded narrow streets. Saw the famous sites including the Golden Bridge where every vendor sells quality jewellery, had wine and a snack in a little Deli, and then headed to San Giamiani.
Our guide, Raffeale or Raff for short was great. San...

This is the only port on this cruise that we took a ship's excursion. We did a tour called Wonders of Lucca and Pisa. We considered doing it on our own, but with all the transfers that had to be made, we decided to play it safe. Our bus left the pier at 9:00 and returned at 5:00.
We went to Lucca first. Lucca is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls. We rented a bicycle built for two and rode along the top of the city walls. A highlight of our trip! Most of the shops were closed because it was Sunday, but we enjoyed wandering...

Livorno is the port used to head off to Pisa and Florence. We were here last year and took an excursion to the lovely walled city of Lucca. This time decided to stay and look around the town. We got the shuttle bus into the centre and wandered around from there. There was not a lot open as it was Sunday but we just enjoyed the walking around and looking at the buildings and the one or two shops that were open. There is a nice canal system here and there is an area called little Venice. One of the main shopping streets was totally empty...

Lorvorno
Today we docked in Livorno an industrial seaport town, so we decided to take an excursion to the walled city of Lucca. Lucca is no ordinary walled city as it is the only one in Italy that completely surrounds the city and is the best preserved Renaissance defense structure in Europe. Inside the walls Lucca is a city of narrow streets, medieval houses and grand churches, One square, that can only be entered though archways, is built completely round as it was built around a roman forum. Parts of the original forum can be seen in the...

April 20 - Livorno, Italy
Our first port in Italy was Livorno in central Tuscany. Most passengers went to Florence and Pisa. Not us. We'll be going there on our RV caravan so instead we took a shuttle bus into this city and then a city bus to the train station to try to reserve our seats for the trains from Venice to Frankfurt at the end of this cruise. Only able to get reservations from Venice to Milano, Milano to Zurich, Switzerland, where we plan to spend a couple of nights before joining the RVers in Frankfurt on May 2nd.
We had a...

Saturday 1st October 2011 Weather:-Again another beautiful day
Livorno, Italy-MSC Sinfonia
We only need to drive 50km to get to the 'MSC Sinfonia' tomorow so that will be easy. The MSC ship the Sinfonia is a sister ship to the 'MSC Armonia' so we should not get lost once we are on board. We have learnt a bit about cruising in these last seven days so we will not let as many opportunities for fun pass us by but we will see there is only so many things that one person can do in a day before you have to say "that is enough for now"
Saturday...

June 22, 2011
Our next port of call was Livorno, Italy, the second largest port in Italy which provides marine entry to the province of Tuscany. We had no plans to join the scheduled day excursions to Florence or Pisa but Brenda said she’d love to take the train to Pisa and the famous Leaning Tower. While I waited for her with Penny in the Compass Rose, our neighbours from home, Bevin and Barb Jones came by and joined up with us.
Armed with general directions from a dockside information booth, we made our way up to the main Piazza in...

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!
The ship docked at Livorno this morning at about 6:30 am. The pier is approximately two miles from Livorno itself. The port authority advised that no one is allowed to walk it due to the amount of traffic in the port itself. There were taxis and shuttles available.
Since our shore excursion wasn't until the afternoon, we took the shuttle into town and did a little walkabout. It also rained quite a bit this day but thankfully, the sun came out on the way to Pisa.
Shore Excursion - Easy Pisa - 1:45 pm to 5:15...

Our entrance to Italy was far less scenic than you would imagine if your vision of Italy is of Venice or Rome. Livorno has little to see; it served simply as our entry point into Italy from Corsica to begin our explorations further south, and as an introduction to two of the less appealing aspects of Italy: coperto - Italian for cover charges at restaurants, ranging anywhere from 1.50 to 4 euros per person ($2.25 - $6), and expensive internet.
After adjusting, we moved on to Siena, a pretty town in Tuscany. The town is centered on Il Campo,...